书城外语用耳朵听最优美的讲演
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第55章 智慧人生(2)

斯蒂夫·乔布斯在斯坦福大学的演讲让人印象深刻,他的三个故事给了我们很多启示。他的成功深深影响了我们。不过他进入了大学为什么又要退学?是什么让他做出这样的决定呢?

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好英文娓娓动听Words and Expressions

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world.I never graduated from college.Truth be told, this is the closest I"ve ever gotten to a college graduation.Today I want to tell you three stories from my life.That"s it.ANo big deal.Just three stories.

BThe first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption.She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife.

CExcept that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking:“We have an unexpected baby boy;do you want him?”They said:“Of course.”My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school.She refused to sign the final adoption papers.She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I *****ly chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents"savings were being spent on my college tuition.After six months, I couldn"t see the value in it.I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out.And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life.So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK.It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made.The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn"t interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

难点重点,一目了然!

长难句解析Sentence Structures

ANo big deal!

不讲大道理!

big deal是俚语,指了不起的事,一般是反语。No big deal指没什么了不起的事。

BThe first story is about connecting the dots.

第一个故事是关于如何串起生命中的点点滴滴。

dot表示点,connect the dots指的是把点连接起来,这里是一种比喻的用法,就像是点线连接成了一幅人生画卷。

CExcept that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl.

没想到我才刚刚出生,律师夫妇突然决定想要一个女孩。

pop out 突然出来。例如:The rabbits popped out as soon as we opened the hutch.我们一打开笼子,兔子就突然跑出来了。pop out在这句话中表示出生。

102.Connecting the Dots(2)串起生活中的点点滴滴(2)

Track 102. MP3

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总词汇量:0381词汇

每篇好演讲都有灵魂!

今日关键语导读Today"s Key Points

史蒂夫·乔布斯退学之后仍然留在了里德学院,选修了一些自己感兴趣的课程,学到和遇到了很多东西,这在他此后的人生中被认为是无价之宝,恰恰是这些点滴为他铺平了道路,最终让他取得了成功。

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It wasn"t all romantic.I didn"t have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends"rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5 deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple.I loved it.AAnd much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on.Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed.Because I had dropped out and didn"t have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this.I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great.It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can"t capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me.And we designed it all into the Mac.It was the first computer with beautiful typography.If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts.BAnd since Windows just copied the Mac, it"s likely that no personal computer would have them.If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do.Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college.But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can"t connect the dots looking forward;you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.You have to trust in something—your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.CThis approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

难点重点,一目了然!

长难句解析Sentence Structures

AAnd much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on.

我凭着直觉和好奇心所做的很多事情,此后被证明是无价之宝。

turn out to be 证明是,原来是。例如:The job turned out to be harder than we thought.这工作比我们想得要难。

BAnd since Windows just copied the Mac, it"s likely that no personal computer would have them.

要不是Windows照搬了Macintosh,个人电脑可能不会有这些字体和字号。

since引导的是原因状语从句。

CThis approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

这个过程从来没有令我失望,只是让我取得更多的成就。

make all the difference对……重要,例如:A hot bath makes all the difference in the morning.上午洗个澡能让人精神振奋。

103.Love and Loss(1)爱与失去(1)

Track 103. MP3

朗读指数:◆◆

背诵指数:◆◆

难度指数:◆◆

总词汇量:0290词汇

每篇好演讲都有灵魂!

今日关键语导读Today"s Key Points